This blog runs parallel to a new poetry blog 'Poetry Pinfold' (poetrypinfold.blogspot.com), and a new blog with poems in Dutch (bartnooteboomgedichten.blogspot.com)

Saturday, February 2, 2019

408. How universal is the good life?

The great
power of economic thought is five-fold. It is simple and parsimonious, it is
amenable to technocratic calculation, satisfying urges towards rational choice
and design, it is purported to be universal, applying always and everywhere, it
conveniently avoids difficult ethical questions, and it supposedly promotes
freedom. As argued earlier, concerning capitalism, in item 406, this makes
economics virtually invincible, and its corrosive effects on the good life may
be inevitable.

An approach
from an Aristotelian consideration of the good life has corresponding
weaknesses. It is complicated, discursive rather than calculative, difficult to
universalize, and hence complicated and expensive, and it is to a greater or
lesser extent paternalistic. It reigns in opportunities for further economic
growth and concentration of wealth. As a result it can expect powerful
opposition from an unholy alliance of the wealthy, established interests of
industry and commerce, libertarians, technocrats, gluttons and consumption
zombies.

Dare we
proceed? Let us take it bit by bit.

One serious
drawback to consideration of the good life is that it seems subjective and
relativistic, flying off in all directions, depending on the identities,
preferences and positions of individuals and the social and economic
environments they are in.

In their
book ‘How much is enough’ (2012), Robert and Edward Skidelsky try to remedy
this. They first specify what conditions elements of the good life should
satisfy, and then proceed to give their list of the good things. Much as I
sympathise with their endeavour, I think they go wrong at the first condition
they specify, that the good things should be universal. I disagree: the list of
goods depends on taste and conditions.

This
immediately shows up in their list, which next to health, respect, personality
(autonomy), friendship, and leisure (absence of external compulsion, intrinsic
value of activity), includes security (especially in income). I disagree with
an unqualified good of security, which to me smacks too much of avoidance of
risk. In the vein of Nietzsche I value the taking of risk for a flourishing
life, at the pain of pain and loss that it involves.

Incidentally,
in an attempt to regain voters in upcoming elections, he Dutch labour party
recently launched a guiding motto of ‘security’. I think that is a bad choice. Insecurity
is un uneliminable part of life. Such a promise cannot be fulfilled and evokes a
further fall of trust when it turns out not to be fulfilled. And it is counter
to the interest of citizens. It would be better to help them accept insecurity and
deal with it.

For Aristotle the good life consists in development of the potential one
has, especially spiritual potential, and the striving for excellence in the
realization of potential. I fully endorse that. Material conditions and
pleasure are also part the good life, but in moderation. Aristotle’s list
included courage, moderation, generosity, justice, and wisdom, and the external
goods necessary to realize them.

So how
relativistic is the good life? Between the extremes of universalism and
individualism there are intermediate forms of unity in diversity. There can be
community without equality or any shared essence.

Music
varies enormously but it always uses tone and pitch. The variety of gables
along canals in Amsterdam is unified in the use of the golden ratio between the
heights of windows on successive floors. Why could humanity not have a similar
variety in views of the good life and yet have some form of resemblance in
common?

Wittgenstein
offered the notion of family resemblance: A has features in common with
B who has features in common with C while A and C have nothing in common. What
families share is chains or networks of resemblance without any clear familiar
essence. Views of the good life might be like that.

But the
most important thing, I think, is this. For Aristotle the overarching virtue,
in common between all lists of goods, was prudence as the ability to
deal with the variety and frequent contrariness of the other goods, in trying
to find a good ‘middle’. For example, courage as a ‘middle’ between
recklessness and cowardice. One can seek some middle between risk and security,
self-interest and altruism, spiritual and material goods, between work for
money and for its intrinsic worth (of enjoyment, social relations, value to
society, …..).

The kind of
economy, and of politics, we should be looking for is one that caters to this.

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